Good News Notes: “To the untrained eye, it may have looked like a giant wood log. In reality, scientists had spotted something unusual off the California coast two years ago: a 3-foot-long mammoth tusk. A research team at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute discovered the tusk in 2019 while exploring an underwater mountain roughly…
Tag: scientists
Glitter is an environmental disaster. So scientists invented an eco-friendly version
Good News Notes: “We have a love-hate relationship with glitter. It’s undeniably sparkly, cute and festive. But dip your hand into a jar of the iridescent plastic particles, and you’ll spend the next year finding specks of it in surprising places. Those places could range from your hair and clothes all the way to oceans…
A half-mile installation just took 20,000 pounds of plastic out of the Pacific – proof that ocean garbage can be cleaned
Good News Notes: “It’s been nearly a decade since Boyan Slat announced at age 18 that he had a plan to rid the world’s oceans of plastic. Slat, now 27, is a Dutch inventor and the founder of the Ocean Cleanup, a nonprofit that aims to remove 90% of floating ocean plastic by 2040. That…
Tasmania’s giant kelp forests starting to regrow just a year into rescue trial
Good News Notes: “A little over a year ago these giant kelp were just tiny brown smudges on a laboratory plate. Now they are pillars of hope in the fight to save Tasmania’s giant kelp forests from extinction. Cayne Layton and his team of scientists from the Institute of Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS) began a selective breeding…
Researchers Discover That Reforestation Cools the Planet More Than We Thought
Good News Notes: “Reforestation is an important strategy to combat climate change. Research has shown forests can store the huge amounts of the carbon that is driving global temperatures. Forests also promote biodiversity and support wildlife. Recent research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences even shows that reforestation encourages cloud cover, which in turn…
Hi-tech wooden flooring can turn footsteps into electricity
Good News Notes: “Scientists have developed technology that can turn footsteps into electricity. By tapping into an unexpected energy source, wooden flooring, researchers from Switzerland have developed an energy-harvesting device that uses wood with a combination of a silicone coating and embedded nanocrystals to produce enough energy to power LED lightbulbs and small electronics. …
China Harvests First Crop of ‘Space Rice’ in Food Security Push
Good News Notes: “China harvested its first batch of “space rice” from seeds that returned from a lunar voyage last year, with scientists hoping it could help create new plant varieties and safeguard the country’s food security. The crop was grown from the 40 grams of seeds that traveled with the Chang’e-5 lunar probe in…
Israeli study offers hope of ‘rewiring’ nerves to restore lost sense of touch
Good News Notes “New Israeli nanotechnology will restore the sense of touch for people who have lost it due injury or amputation, scientists say. A Tel Aviv University lab has developed a tiny sensor that can be implanted into fingers, toes, or any other body part that has lost the sense of touch. It “bypasses”…
Scientists develop pain-free blood sugar test for diabetics
Good News Notes: “Australian scientists say they have developed pain-free blood sugar testing for diabetics, a non-invasive strip that checks glucose levels via saliva. For diabetics, managing their blood sugar levels typically means pricking their fingers multiple times a day with a lancet and then placing a drop of blood on a testing strip. Understandably,…
A Never-Before-Seen Type of Signal Has Been Detected in The Human Brain
Good News Notes: “Scientists have discovered a unique form of cell messaging occurring in the human brain that’s not been seen before. Excitingly, the discovery hints that our brains might be even more powerful units of computation than we realized. Early last year, researchers from institutes in Germany and Greece reported a mechanism in the brain’s…